This last spring, I planted a lovely Passion vine. I had great plans for this vine, and it started off great. Then it was overtaken by caterpillars! They completely destroyed the plant and ate every single leaf on it :( I tried spraying them, removing them, everything- but they always came back so finally I decided oh well- at least we will have butterflies!
Sept 27- here, you can see some of the caterpillars and how they have eaten everything off my plant. This is the day I brought them in because I knew they were ready to form their crysalis
Sept 28- this one is making it's 'button' so that it will stick to the wall while it forms the crysalis
Oct 4 crysalis is fully formed- now we wait.
Oct 4- one of them had started forming it's cyrsalis outside before I was able to get it in, and he finished in the butterfly cage, but did it on the ground. This is bad for butterflies as they need to be in the air when they emerge so their wings can dry correctly. I ended up gluing the tip to a qtip that was attached to the cage.
Oct 10- we have butterflies! Amazingly they both emerged within probably minutes of each other because I had checked earlier and there was nothing new happening.
Oct 11- freedom! I was taking pictures and this one escaped! He went into the family room where Caden found and caught him. They are so pretty! This type of butterfly is called a Gulf Fritallary- the only food source for the caterpillars is....yep, Passion vine.
This is the butterfly that I glued. I think the glue had some effects on him because his wing never fully opened and one of his antannae fell off :( He could flutter around some but not really fly.
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